Desolate World

Then Ace had a good idea. He looked at his brother and sighed.

"You know what? Actually, I want to give you something. But I don't have the mood to do that anymore," Ace said.

Everyone then stopped anything that they were doing and waited for what Ace said next.

But, Ace didn't continue what he said. He dipped his bread into his soup and then entered it into his mouth. 

Then Ace saw Cloud smiled. She then said, "You mean the two skill crystals that you have? Yeah, they are good things."

Sampson looked confused. He then asked, "What are you talking about? What crystal?"

Then Ace saw his wife's eyes shone. She said, "I heard from Aria, they are good things. She had some of them. Do you have two? What is their type?"

"Unfortunately, they were for warriors or soldiers. But If you can trade them with skills that you or ma'am can study, it will be great. Ask her tomorrow what she has. You can trade then if you find the skill crystal you can learn," Ace said.

"Okay," Sofia answered.

"Hey, It seems I can learn them. I'm a kind of fighter, right? But what is this crystal stuff? Geo, do you know?" As if he knew that the three grown-ups wouldn't want to explain it, he tried his luck with Geo.

Geo then looked at his father. Ace then said, "It will be too mouthy. Just show him your new skill. You haven't shown them to your grandma and your mom, right?"

Cloud then frowned. She asked, "So, you two secretly hid something from me, huh?"

"I'm sorry, Grandma. Dad said that it would be more fun if I show them to you when their number is forty," Geo tried to explain.

Everyone looked at Geo with a curious stare.

After that Ace took them to their back garden. It was not too large, but definitely could contain a hundred people. And because it was surrounded by a high wooden wall, their neighbors couldn't see directly what was inside.

"I have another reason why I prohibited Geo to show them to the refugees. Because this skill is special, it will definitely cause an uproar if they see it," Ace said. He then urged Geo to take them off.

Geo nodded, he then took his new pets off to the garden. Immediately, 40 skeletons were summoned to the small garden. 

They formed a neat battle formation with 20 skeletons soldiers that wielded a sword and a shield each. They wore chain armors with leather armor on top of them and horns helmets. They also wore boots. They were divided into two lines of defensive formation of 10 soldiers.

Behind them was a line of 10 skeleton archers. They wore the same equipment except that they wore leather hunter hats. They wielded a longbow. However, for some reason, they didn't have any quiver of arrows on their body.

Behind the line of archers was a line of skeleton riders. The ten of them wore plate armor on their torso, and the same equipment as skeleton soldiers on other parts of their bodies. They rode skeleton horses that also wore complete equipment for horses. And like skeleton archers, they didn't have weapons on them.

The 40 skeletons only stood there without noise. But, from their line of sight, Ace knew that they looked at Geo, ready to receive any order. They were really similar to trained soldiers. 

"The-They are a skeleton army? How can?" Cloud asked while looking at Ace full of questions.

"It's the present from Mars. According to him, no one could learn it in the village, so he gave it to Geo. What do you think? A 40 level 40 personnel of Skeleton army. They were the special troop of the undead. And what is more shocking is, every one of them has individuality and personal inventory. They stored some of their weapons and arrows in their inventory.

So besides an army, they are also good at logistics. I am envious of Geo for having them. And that's not all, there are still ten elites that couldn't be raised for a while. They need a lot of mana to be revived. So, we need to wait for the completion of the village to raise them all," Ace said.

"Necromancer is a grade-S job. There should be only 10 players that can choose this job. The weakness of this job is they don't have much mana. So, they heavily need equipment that can increase their mana amount and do complicated rituals to make their army. You can say that they are a money-burning profession," Cloud explained.

"Yes, Geo got the signature skill of Necromancer and Lich 'Bone resurrection'," Ace said. He then explained all he knew about the skeletons in front of them.

"So cool!" Sampson couldn't help but exclaim. He then looked at Ace in a fiery expression.

He asked, "So, you have skill crystals that can teach skills like that?"

"No, they are far inferior. But, if you are lucky, you will find some skills that can supplement each other. Like me. I have learned 3 super cool skills," Ace said. He then told them his three new skills.

It made Sampson look really jealous. But, Ace knew his brother was too ashamed to ask Ace for the skill crystals.

Ace was satisfied with Sampson's reaction. He knew his brother well. He would be anxious for a long time. Of course, Ace would give his brother one of the crystals. As it was his intention from the moment he got the skill crystals. His brother's level was only 18. He needed to level up two times to be able to learn the skill.

Ace wanted to make his brother suffer for the time being. As Sampson had almost spilled the beans of his embarrassing past.

"Let's go in! I have a more important thing to say. Geo, take them into your ring. The show is over," Ace said.

After seeing Geo enter his new army into his ring. They were ready to come back in.

As Ace walked into the house, he could see his brother wanted to say something several times. But he could only swallow the words that he wanted to say. 

'You won't be full by swallowing your pride, brother. Let's see, how long can you endure it?' Ace said in his heart with a sneer on his face.

***